Good old Donald, eh? He's a constant source of amusement isn't he? It would be more funny if the idea of him becoming president of the US wasn't so scary. But anyway, as an entertaining diversion here he is, singing the famous Muppets' song Mahna Mahna (yes, I checked, that's the correct spelling)...

I came across this powerful ad this morning while looking through some reference books, and it made me wonder, what has happened to the idea of strong ideas, executed simply?

We're now more used to seeing weak ideas that are then over-wrought and over styled to within an inch of their lives, over-photoshopped, over-slick and often with multiple logos, web addresses, social tags added for good measure.

There's a real power in stripping things back and getting your message across in the most simple way you can. But then that requires the skill of reduction, which is seemingly out of fashion.

Happy Monday folks. I feel like we've been neglecting this cherished organ over the last couple of weeks. This is mainly due to the fact that we're up our mucky bits in a couple of extremely tasty projects at the moment.

Apologies to anyone who has been stopping by for a new slice of our nonsense only to find that our nonsense shelves are empty.

Anyway, to anyone who hasn't been reading the blog for long, there are over eight years worth of our nonsense on this blog, most of which is way better than the kind of half-baked tat we write these days. If you're interested, take a look down the right at the monthly archives, or you can view by subject under Categories.

To keep things moving along, I thought I'd repost what has been one of our most popular posts, The Centre For Common Fucking Sense in Marketing, featuring our second most stolen and reposted image, Poliakovs Pyramid Of Engagement (do feel free to steal, by the way, the more the merrier)...

Advertising and marketing is filled with lots and lots of very smart, talented people, people who have good instincts and common sense. So why is it then that the bullshit-talkers and the purveyors of nonsense are in the ascendancy?

The answer is simple.
The bullshitters have the charts.

You know the scenario. You're in a meeting, you know full-well that something is going to work/isn't going to work/is true/isn't true, but someone will turn up with a deck of charts to prove themselves right and you wrong. And there you have it. The people with charts always win. The end. Even if it flies in the face of what is clearly common fucking sense. This is because everyone is shit scared of getting it wrong, or rather shit scared of being blamed for getting it wrong. So everyone hangs onto anything that looks like it proves something. Then they can blame that later if it all goes tits-up.

Over here in smug Sell! Towers we created our own little bubble, where common sense rules, and powerpoint is outlawed. However, we know that this isn't the case for everybody. So in an attempt to help redress the balance, we are fighting fire with with fire. We are creating a body of charts to illustrate common sense. We're sorry it has come to this. But here we are. Here. Anyway, now the smart people of advertising and marketing can fight the bullshitters and nonsense-talkers with their own charts. A chart-off, if you will. Published under the banner of The Centre For Common Fucking Sense In Marketing, or CoFSim for short (a stupid, nonsense-y name to confuse the bullshitters).

So here we present the first. Poliakov's Pyramid Of Engagement. A simple, yet convincing-looking chart to prove what our common-sense tells us. That people are more likely to spend time engaging with something that they're very interested in. Ergo, if you are marketing a product that isn't in the top interest zone, you better have a rip-snorting, son-of-a-bitch of an idea (or a big prize) if you want anyone to interact any further than a cursory glance. So now you can turn up at that meeting to discuss the lame user-generated-content campaign idea for the new scouring-pad client, armed with suitably complicated-looking ammunition to back-up your argument that everyone is taking crazy-pills if they think anyone is going to take-part.

Sell! Sell!’s idiot in residence here again. My previous attempt to be expelled from this blog has backfired. Not only have I been asked to do this every week, but I keep getting told that I'm the prettiest princess in all the land.

So, you can look forward to this brain-numbing nonsense every week from here on in. (I can’t apologise enough.)

Sell!Feed round 2. Let’s boogie.

Christian Vieler takes some pretty good snaps of dogs the moment before they catch their treats. Wonder how long it'll before we see these with a Pedigree logo bottom right?